Plate heat exchanger maintenance recommendations
Plate heat exchanger maintenance recommendations for the first period
practical example
A beverage plant used a non-original rubber gasket for its CIP plate heat exchanger. During one of the night-shift production of the CIP, the non- original rubber gasket failed to seal, resulting in the ejection of hot alkali from the heat exchanger, causing a personal safety incident.
Rationale
This accident was caused by the poor quality of the non-original rubber gasket.
Prescription
Ensure heat exchanger sealing performance with the original rubber gasket.
Analyze
Why rubber gaskets must use the original:
1 Rubber gaskets require high accuracy of external dimensions.
2 The hardness of the counterfeit product is too high or too low.
3 The retraction performance data of the counterfeit product is not good.
4 The compression stress relaxation of the counterfeit product is too large.
Rubber gasket as a complex composition of chemical polymers, different manufacturers of rubber gaskets can not do the sealing performance of a consistent, long-term use of imitation sealing gasket will damage the metal sheet or directly lead to sealing failure.
Plate Heat Exchanger Maintenance Recommendations Phase II
practical example
A brewery cooling plate exchange using ammonia refrigeration, in the production process, the metal plate sheet crack perforation, resulting in hot and cold sides of the medium intermixed, ammonia mixed into the product side, the direct economic loss of millions of dollars.
Rationale
This accident was caused by stress corrosion perforation of the sheet metal.
Prescription
Preventive integrity testing of sheet metal by predicting the metal condition of the sheet metal in advance.
Analyze
Why do sheet metal sheets fail?
1 System water hammer directly damages the heat exchanger sheet metal.
2 Long-term fluctuations in system pressure unstable impact, metal fatigue.
3 Gap opening, corrosive elements stop accumulating on the surface of the plate.
4 Incorrect CIP method destroys sheet metal pieces.
5 Damage to sheet metal by using counterfeit rubber gaskets.
6 Incorrect installation damages the sheet metal tabs.
